Wednesday, November 23, 2016

The villains of Bereishit are rarely “Monsters of the Week”, appearing for a single episode, threatening the Jewish protagonist and being vanquished by G-d and our intrepid heroes. Many of the foes introduced in the Torah’s early chapters – Aram, Canaan, Amalek, Edom and Moav, for example – participate in centuries-long biblical arcs of antagonism, and along the way they teach us lessons about our identity and mission. One such foe is the nation of Midian.

A History of Midian
At first, Midian seems like a footnote in our genealogy. After Yitzchak marries Rivkah, Avraham weds Keturah, and she births six sons. Midian, the fourth of these sons, does not stay in Canaan long; he is exiled to the east, along with his brothers and the anonymous children of unnamed concubines. As Bereishit 25:6 states, Avraham “gave them gifts, and he sent them away from his son, Yitzchak,” lest there be any confusion about who would be included in the Jewish national line.

Midian is far from done, though. They re-surface to play a role in drawing Yosef from the pit, and sending him down to Egypt. (Bereishit 37:28) Later, Moshe becomes a fugitive from Egyptian justice and flees to Midian. (Shemot 2:15) Further along, the Moabites recruit Midian for support in hiring Bilam to curse the Jews. (Bamidbar 22:4) Then, when Bilam fails to harm the Jews, Midianite women join with Moabite women to seduce the Jews and draw them into idolatry. A Midianite princess, Kozbi, publicly embraces Zimri, the prince of the tribe of Shimon. (Bamidbar 25)

The Midian Motif
When we examine these stories of Midian carefully, we recognize two consistent Midianite markers.

First, the Midianite national subconscious remembers being excised from the line of Avraham, and intentionally or unintentionally, they pay back their ancestor by separating his other descendants from the family:
Yosef is separated from his family via the agency of Midianites;
Yitro, a Midianite, welcomes Moshe to spend decades apart from the Jews enslaved in Egypt.
Kozbi separates Zimri from the Jewish people, drawing him to her before the entire nation.

Second, Midian tempts the isolated Jew sexually and religiously, attempting to strip our ethnic and religious identities:
When Yosef descends to Egypt via Midianite agency, the wife of Potifar attempts to lure him into a liaison – an act which Yosef labels “a sin against G-d.” (Bereishit 39:9) Neither immorality nor idolatry actually takes place, and that is a credit to Yosef’s righteousness.
When Moshe goes to Midian, he marries Tzipporah, the daughter of Yitro, “the priest of Midian”. The act has the appearance of impropriety; indeed, Zimri justifies his deed with Kozbi by asking Moshe, “Son of Amram! Is she prohibited or permitted? And if you will say she is prohibited, then who permitted the daughter of Yitro for you?” (Sanhedrin 82a; and see Sotah 43a) Certainly, Moshe’s marriage to Tzipporah and relationship was ultimately neither immoral nor idolatrous, but like Yosef’s refusal of Potifar’s wife, that is a credit to the righteousness of the participants. [It is also worth noting that Midrash Aggadah to Shemot 18:3 ascribes to Yitro a quasi-successful attempt to educate Moshe and his children in idolatry.]
Finally, in luring Zimri and other Jews, Midian succeeds in separating Jews from their family, leading them first into immorality, and then into the idolatry of Baal Peor. Midian has achieved her revenge.

The Moral of Midian
Perhaps Midian’s cross-generational retribution carries a message for the descendants of Avraham. I have not seen any traditional commentator criticize Avraham’s treatment of Keturah’s children, and I would never suggest otherwise. The apparent motivation of averting challenges to Yitzchak’s inheritance is sensible. Nonetheless, the most benign separatism remains exclusive, and our human social drive naturally resents exclusion.

For all of its emphasis upon darchei noam [paths of pleasantness] and community, Torah is exclusive, even within our family. Certain rituals are limited to particular groups, and laws like kashrut and tumah compel the observant to keep a measured distance from the non-observant. May we learn from the saga of Midian, and recognize the pain this inflicts. Even when such pain is necessary, we would do well to find methods of mitigation beyond “Avraham gave them gifts.”

Thursday, November 10, 2016

From my vantage point, it seems that Avshalom, King Yoshiyahu and the American Democratic Party all fell victim to a common leadership mistake.

About 3,000 years ago, wicked Avshalom launched a failed coup against his father, King David. Achitofel, described in Tanach as the greatest counselor of all time, advised Avshalom to lead an immediate assault to eliminate his father, but instead he listened to the flattery of a shepherd who said that the whole nation was on his side, and he had already won. If Avshalom had not taken the nation's support for granted, he might not have taken three lances in the heart. (See Shemuel II 16-18)

About four centuries after Avshalom's death, righteous King Yoshiyahu suffered not three lances, but three hundred. The prophet Yirmiyah warned him not to go to war against Egypt, but he didn't listen; Yoshiyahu thought the nation was behind his attempts to restore Torah law, and that their merit would ensure victory. The result was his death, and the end of his pious campaign. (See Eichah Rabbah 1:53)

Which brings us to Donald Trump's surprising victory in this week's American election. Analysts will debate this upset for a long time to come, but from my perspective there is at least one clear lesson in the rejection of President Obama's legacy by sixty million American voters: Never take for granted that the nation is behind you .

This president passed healthcare, trade deals, the Iran nuclear agreement, environmental legislation and more by aggressive lobbying or executive order. As the New York Times wrote, "Once skeptical of executive power, Obama has come to embrace it. Mr. Obama will leave the White House as one of the most prolific authors of major regulations in presidential history." Pollsters and Hillary Clinton's team thought that the president's supporters and beneficiaries outweighed those who had been legislatively overpowered over the past eight years ; it was only Tuesday night that we learned that given one vote per person, the balance of power would swing the other way. In politics as in physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

To my amateur eye, the shared experience of Avshalom, King Yoshiyahu and the Democrats teaches a critical lesson in leadership. As Mishlei 28:14 preaches, "Fortunate is the one who is always afraid." A little bit of insecurity in our leadership, a little less bullying and a little more bargaining, can go a long way.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Many Ashkenazi shuls say the piyut of "Kah Keli" (י-ה א-לי) after the haftorah and before Ashrei on Yom Tov mornings. The poem (text available here) consists of three verses, each of which starts with one unique sentence, and then continues with two sentences of refrain. The refrain lists various types of korbanot, and then asks Gd to bring us back to our land.

So what does this poem have to do with Yom Tov?

Looking at the standard Artscroll and Koren commentaries didn't yield anything for me, but here are my thoughts:

1. The opening line of each verse refers to one of the three Regalim:
Verse 1 describes Gd as גואלי - "my redeemer" - Pesach.
Verse 2 describes Gd's unfathomable wisdom - לתבונתו אין חקר - the Torah of Shavuot (granted that Shavuot is mainly about the bikkurim, in liturgy it is closely associated with the presentation of the Torah at Sinai)
Verse 3 speaks of Gd "joining the tents" - חבר כל אהלו - a reference to the Succah. (There may also be a pun in לבלב for לולב.)

2. The refrain is an appropriate introduction for Musaf, as it lists the korbanot and asks Gd to bring us back to our land in the merit of those korbanot.
This is a point that the Artscroll and Koren translations seem to miss, even though it makes the piyut a reiteration of the overall theme of the musaf amidah - remember our korbanot, and bring us back home.
The refrain lists the korbanot of various kinds, and then requests, "זכור נלאה אשר נשאה והשיבה לאדמתך - Remember the exhausted one who lifted up (or carried), and bring her back to Your land." The standard translations assume that this means "the exhausted nation who received Your favour" or "the exhausted nation who bore suffering," because they can't identify an antecedent for what it was that the nation lifted up/carried/bore. But the antecedent is that list of korbanot - "Remember the exhausted one, who lifted up all of these offerings, and bring her back to Your land."

3. And building off of #2, there is another layer of association, which turns Yeshayah's criticism of our festivals on its head.
In Yeshayah 1:14, Gd says that He hates our holidays, they are burdensome to Him, and נלאתי נשוא, "I am exhausted from carrying them."
Our poet reverses the line, describing us as נלאה אשר נשאה, the exhausted one, who carried the korbanot. Gd cannot tell us that He rejects our festivals and is tired of them; we exhausted ourselves, bringing those korbanot to Gd on those festivals, and we claim that merit for ourselves.

So there's a lot a going on here - all of which leads me to Ibn Ezra on Kohelet 5:1, in which he protests loudly against davening with piyutim which require this sort of detective work in order to make sense of them. I tend to agree...

[Added note: I just saw footnote 80 in the Goldschmidt machzor for Succot here, attesting to a late (17th century?) origin for this piyut, and noting its mystical character. Interesting.]

Monday, October 10, 2016

Rabbi Moshe Alshich was
one of the leading sages of the city of Tzefat in the middle of the 16th
century. Ordained by Rabbi Yosef Karo, he was expert in Tanach, Talmud, Halachah
and Kabbalah. But as Rabbi Chaim Vital reported, Rabbi Alshich’s son converted
to Islam. Distraught, Rabbi Alshich went to Rabbi Yitzchak Luria, the Ari z”l
for help. The Ari gave him a text to recite in the daily amidah:

May it be Your will, HaShem, our Gd and Gd of our
ancestors, that You tunnel beneath Your throne of honour[1]
and receive the repentance of so-and-so, for Your right hand is extended to
receive those who return. Blessed are You, Gd, who desires repentance.

In ensuing generations,
the Ari’s appeal to Gd for intervention appeared in multiple, increasingly
stronger texts. In the 18th century, Rav Zvi Hirsch Kaidanover
added, “יהופך לבבם לעשות רצונך בלבב שלם”, May You cause their hearts to be
reversed, to perform Your will wholeheartedly. Gd, make them repent!

The question

While the Ari z”l perhaps pioneered this prayer, he was far
from the first to suggest praying for Gd to help people follow a proper path:

·Dovid haMelech davened:
“May HaShem, Gd of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yisrael, remember eternally my
dedication of materials for the Beit haMikdash, and therefore turn the nation’s
hearts to Him. May He give my son Shlomo a complete heart to guard His mitzvot
and laws.[2]”

·And the Talmud speaks of
praying for Gd’s assistance with teshuvah; think of the classic story of the
local gang who tormented Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Meir davened for them to die; his
wife, Beruriah, davened that they repent.[3]
And the conclusion seems to follow Beruriah’s view.

In truth, praying for someone to return is a dangerous game;
it can easily feed into facile self-righteousness. Who am I to decide that
someone needs teshuvah - and needs help doing teshuvah? And maybe they don’t
want my help at all; maybe they view me as a busybody! But the idea is there,
with a solid pedigree in Dovid, Beruriah and the Ari z”l. It requires cautious
humility, but we are indeed empowered to ask Gd to help others repent.[4]

We could ask many questions about the Ari’s prayer, and the
examples of Dovid haMelech and Beruriah, but here’s one fundamental problem:
How can we ask Gd to help with teshuvah? We are taught that Gd will not seek to
control יראת שמים, that
emotional awe which is so often the driving force impelling our return![5]
How can we expect Gd to break that rule?

I am far from the first
to ask this question. The Maharsha[6]
offered one suggestion, and the Ben Ish Chai[7]
offered another.[8] But I
would like to suggest a third approach, which is important not only if we daven
for others to repent, but also in davening for help with our own teshuvah
process.

An answer from Eliyahu

In the middle of the era
of the first Beit haMikdash, at the height of the reign of King Achav and Queen
Izevel, at the apex of influence of the prophets of the Baal and Asherah over
the Jewish people, Eliyahu haNavi issued an invitation for a showdown, a duel
of dieties. In one corner, hundreds of prophets of idolatry; in the other,
lonely Elijah. Both would attempt to summon fire from the heavens to consume
their offering. At stake: The faith of a nation.

The priests of Baal
batted first; they struggled mightily, they cried out and capered and cut
themselves, while Eliyahu mocked them – and no fire came. At last afternoon
arrived, and Eliyahu addressed Gd. He declared, “HaShem, Gd of Avraham,
Yitzchak and Yisrael![9]
Let it be known today that You are Gd in Israel, and I am Your servant, and all
I have done has been at Your word. Answer me, Gd, answer me, and this nation
will know that You are Gd -” And then he spoke fateful words, “For You have
turned their hearts backward, ואתה הסבות את לבם
אחורנית.” And at that, fire descended
from the sky and consumed the totality of the offering – the animal, the wood,
the stones of the altar, the dirt, even the water Eliyahu had poured over the
altar.[10]

“For You have turned
their hearts backward!” As explained by Rabbi Elazar and most classic
commentators,[11]
Eliyahu here launched an accusation at Gd: it’s Your fault that they sinned!
You invested them with a yetzer hara driving them to sin, and You have
failed to provide a counter-inspiration.

Long before this, Moshe
accused Gd of setting up the Jews for their sin with the Golden Calf,[12]
but Eliyahu went further than Moshe. Moshe only asked Gd to forgive the Jews;
Eliyahu demanded that Gd act constructively, and provide the impetus which
would lead to our national return.

This may be what
permitted the Ari’s prayer for Divine help. Gd invested each of us with a set
of desires – ego, insecurity, lust, greed, laziness, rebelliousness, and so on.
Assuredly, there was good reason for doing this; those traits even work to our
advantage, at times. But the decision to design each human baby anew with these
traits brings with it Eliyahu’s charge – ואתה
הסבות את לבם אחורנית, You
have led them astray! We know You want us to repent and to do right, so please
help us out. Don’t rob us of free will, but give us a sign, as You did at Har
haKarmel, to help us see the truth. Or decrease the temptations with which we
struggle. Help us.[13]

We lack the righteous
track record of Eliyahu HaNavi, such that we could independently utter his intrepid
demands with our mouths; blaming G-d is a popular sport, but Eliyahu’s
righteous outrage seems a bit contrived on the lips of such willing
participants in sin. Nonetheless, the Ari harnessed Eliyahu’s message and
taught us that in this case we may use those words as well. It is legitimate
and meaningful for us to daven to HaShem to balance things out, and to help
those who have sinned to return.[14]

For ourselves

In the standard Yom
Kippur davening, we already make use of Eliyahu’s approach for ourselves. At
every amidah of Yom Kippur, after we perform viduy acknowledging our
sins, we turn to HaShem with this request:

יהי רצון מלפניך, ד' אלקי ואלקי אבותי, שלא אחטא עוד

May
it be Your will – HaShem, my Gd, and Gd of my ancestors, that I not sin again.

It’s Eliyahu’s principle
at work: We are entitled to claim assistance from Gd.

·We are obligated to perform cheshbon hanefesh, to account for our past
deeds.

·We are obligated to regret, to make amends, and to apologize.

·We are obligated to devise methods by which we will replicate our good
deeds and avoid replicating our transgressions in the future.

·But at each step, we are within our rights to say to HaShem, אתה הסבות את לבם אחורנית. I am
doing my best – but I need Your help to clean up the mess I’ve made.

And it’s an obligation
to do so for others

We have seen two points:
We are justified in turning to HaShem for help with our own teshuvah, and we
are empowered to turn to HaShem for help with the teshuvah of others. But there
is one more step we must take.

Rabbi Elazar Azikri was
part of the Ari’s 16th century circle. He compiled a book of mitzvot
called Sefer Charedim, and in it he also addressed the idea of praying for
others to repent – and he wrote,

Just
as one must pray for himself, so one must pray for the sinners of Israel… to repent.[15]

What is the nature of
this obligation? What obligates us to pray on behalf of the teshuvah of others?

·One might suggest that it is a function of the mitzvah of Ahavas HaShem; we
are commanded to increase love of Gd in the world.[16]

·One might suggest that it’s an act of chesed; we hold doors for others, we
give tzedakah, and we try to help others to repent.

·One might suggest it’s part of the mitzvah of tochachah; we are to educate
others so that they don’t sin, and we help them avoid sinning in other ways –
like by davening for their return.

·But we might look at it as a function of being a member of a community;
it’s about ערבות, our
mutual responsibility. My mitzvot are not complete until everyone’s mitzvot are
complete – and so I must humbly ask Gd to help others to repent, too.

In a moment, we will
stand as a community and commemorate our extended family – victims of the
Shoah, victims of terror, and the fallen of the Machteret and the IDF.
Individuals will recall immediate family members.

The main purpose is to
daven and pledge tzedakah on behalf of those who have passed away, but we may
also draw on their example. Kedoshim, many of whom acted heroically for others
in the worst of situations. Soldiers who gave their lives to defend their
brethren. Family members who raised, nurtured and protected their loved ones.

May we be inspired by
their example:

·to daven not only for our own teshuvah, but for the teshuvah of others.

·To use the words of the Ari z”l, or to use our own words.

·And to ask Hashem to be a partner in our own teshuvah, and in the teshuvah
of our nation.

Eliyahu was correct –
HaShem has had a part in our errors. But HaShem is צופה לרשע וחפץ בהצדקו, as we
say in the piyut of וכל מאמינים, “He sees the wicked person, and desires
his reform.” Or as some versions actually say, “וחפץ
להצדיקו, Gd sees the wicked person and
wishes to make him righteous.[17]”
May this be the year when Gd acts on this wish, for us and for all around us. ד' חפץ למען צדקו, יגדיל תורה ויאדיר.

[14] One may
note a similar idea used to explain Gd’s hardening of Pharaoh’s heart against
the makkos

[15] Sefer
Chareidim, Mitzvot haTeluyot b’Eretz Yisrael 5. This is also seen in the
version of the Ari’s tefillah presented in Tefillah l'Dovid, by R' Chaim Dovid
Amar, talmid of the Or haChaim, 18th century Morocco (http://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=50549&st=&pgnum=53)

[16] Raavad
contends that this is the basis for the mitzvah of aiding conversion to Judaism

Friday, September 30, 2016

Once upon a time, Jews lived as a minority, subject to the
whims of the regnant majority. Impoverished and unpopular, they began to fall
away from Torah; they stopped speaking Hebrew, they stopped observing Shabbat
and Yom Tov, and they married out. Then, suddenly, unbelievably, that regnant
majority granted the Jews permission to return to Israel and build up their
land, we even held Jerusalem again – but most of the Jews did not take
advantage of the opportunity, unable to believe that their redemption had
arrived. Those who did go encountered nasty neighbours as well as difficult living
conditions; the feebleness of their settlement was taken as evidence that this
was no Messianic time, and their leaders failed to inspire the majority of
Diaspora Jewry to join them.

This sounds a lot like the early years of the State of
Israel, but as I suspect many of you recognize, it is actually a story that is
2500 years old. It is the history of the Jews who were allowed by the Persians
to return to Israel and build the second Beit haMikdash.

We were small in number, and without resources, relying on
the generosity of the Persian government. We lacked the sacred relics of the
first Beit haMikdash – the Aron, the Tablets, and so on. The walls of Jerusalem
were in ruins; we were without defenses, so that we needed to allocate precious
manpower just to stand guard protecting those who were trying to build. The
local Samaritans objected to our plans, and successfully lobbied the Persians
to halt our construction of the Temple. The Jews still in Babylon sent a disheartened
and disheartening inquiry: “Should we still fast on Tishah b'Av? It doesn’t
look like your Redemption is happening so fast.”

And on to this depressing stage stepped one man, who would electrify
the Jewish people and change history. His name was Chaggai, and here is the
story of his four inspiring prophecies.

Message 1: The First of Elul

·Recall that on the first
day of Elul in the Jews’ first year in the midbar, Moshe ascended Mount Sinai
to acquire the second set of tablets, replacing the first, broken Luchot.[1]

·And on another first day of
Elul, Chaggai proclaimed a message of equal renewal: Just as the original
tablets were destroyed but replaced, so our Beit haMikdash, brutally shattered,
will yet be replaced.[2]

But Chaggai did not merely put forth a message of potential
rebirth; the prophet declared rebirth our obligation! He proclaimed, “So
declares G-d, Master of Multitudes: This nation says, ‘The time has not yet
come, the time for the House of Gd to be built.’… Tell me something: Is it the
time for you to dwell in your homes, while this house is in ruins?[3]”

In other words: Don’t think that the default is to sit at
home, and there is a particular time for building. Just the opposite: Sitting
at home is only for a particular time! You are natural born builders, the default
is to build, not to sit at home, so go do it!

Message 2: The 24th of Elul

Chaggai then followed up with a stirring second message
which to me is the most important of his four prophecies: Don’t overthink it,
don’t overanalyze your options and methods and particulars. Just build! “So declares Gd, the Master of Multitudes: Pay
attention! Go up the mountain, bring wood, and build the house![4]”
It’s that simple: just bring the materials, and ignore the static.

And unlike the experience of so many biblical prophets, the
Jews listened to Chaggai. ביום עשרים וארבעה לחדש בששי, On the 24th day of the
sixth month, the 24th day of Elul, the day before the anniversary of
Creation of the World, the Jews began a new act of preparation for Creation,
preparing wood as well as stone for the construction.[5]

Message 3: Hoshana Rabbah

But Chaggai was not done. On the 21st day of the
seventh month, the 21st of Tishrei, Hoshana Rabbah, Chaggai
proclaimed a third message.

Hoshana Rabbah is the last day of Succot, the last day of
prayers for rain, a time when the first Beit haMikdash saw שמחת בית השואבה, the
great water-drawing. The Talmud states that one who never saw שמחת בית השואבה has
never seen true joy; there were jugglers of torches, there was ecstatic dancing
and singing! But there were neither jugglers nor dancers for these Jews, who
had only sticks and stones and an altar, and they must have been a most forlorn
band on that Hoshana Rabbah.

Chaggai played the cheerleader
for this dejected group, declaring: “Who among you saw this house in its
former glory, and what do you see now? It seems like nothing on your eyes, I
know. But Gd declares: חזק, be strong Zerubavel [the governor of Judea], and חזק, be strong Yehoshua,
Kohen gadol, and חזק, be
strong, O nation! עשו, just
do! For I, Gd, Master of Multitudes, am with you.[6]”

This was the third message: Despite your descent, Gd will be
with you. If you build it, He will come.

Message Four: 24 Kislev

And then there was one more message, בעשרים
וארבעה לתשיעי, on
the 24th day of the ninth month. The 24th of Kislev, Erev
Chanukah, to us. For the Jews of that time, who would not know the Greeks for
centuries, it was significant for another reason: it was the end of the season
for bringing ביכורים, the
offering of their first produce.[7]

The process of bringing
Bikkurim, dedicating the first of our crops to G-d, could not happen for those
Jews in the first years of the second Beit haMikdash. And to them Chaggai offered
one last message, a charge of responsibility. This message may be understood on
many levels, but here I am following the approach of Rabbi Meir Leibush,
Malbim.

Chaggai asked: “If you
were to take meat from a korban inside your garment, and the garment were then
to touch bread, stew, wine, oil or some other food – would that communicate
holiness to the bread, etc?” And the answer was No; holiness cannot be
communicated that way.

Then Chaggai asked:“If someone
who was impure would touch any of these things, would that communicate impurity?”
And the answer was Yes; impurity can be communicated with that kind of contact.[8]

What in the world was Chaggai
talking about?! All of the other messages were clear, but what is this riddle
about sacred items and impurity? Malbim explains Chaggai’s message to those
Jews who were distressed at the lack of Bikkurim: Impurity is highly contagious,
communicated easily. But holiness, like that of a korban? That isn’t
transmitted easily. It takes prolonged, direct exposure.

Summary

These are Chaggai’s messages:

1.On the first of Elul I told you that you must build, this is your basic
nature.

2.I also told you that you shouldn’t overthink it – just take the materials,
go up the mountain, and do the job.

3.On Hoshana Rabbah I told you not to be depressed at your insufficiency, for
Gd is with you.

4.And at the end of the season of the first fruits I tell you that you will
need to persevere, to overcome obstacles and fight your way through challenges,
in order to produce those fruits and parade with them to Jerusalem once more.

The Message

In context, of course,
Chaggai’s message is about returning to Zion and building the Beit haMikdash –
but it is equally applicable to each of us on the first of Tishrei.

I asked one of my classes last
week, “What do you want to hear about on Rosh HaShanah?” To which one thoughtful
participant replied by email, “I would want to hear
a wise person discuss the topic: What does it mean to start a new year? What
are man's obligations? What should we hope for from ourselves?”

I have been
Mordechai Torczyner for too long to think myself wise - but Chaggai was most
wise:

·To start a new
year means to recognize that we are builders by nature, that it is time not to
sit in our homes but to act.

·Man’s
obligations at the new year are to take wood, go up the mountain, and build the
house. Don’t overthink teshuvah and self-improvement, the way you can change
yourselves and the world; we know our weaknesses and the needs of our community
and our world, and we know the way to correct the weaknesses and fill the
needs. We don’t need intricate plans and we certainly don’t need fear of
failure. Our King is with us.

·And what
should we hope for, from ourselves? The perseverance to see the process
through, catalyzing the communication of holiness by prolonged exposure and
endeavour, so that when we come back here next year, we will be witnesses to a
fine building perched atop that mountain.

Agnon

Just about fifty years ago, on December 10, 1966, the Nobel
Prize for Literature went to S. Y. Agnon and Nelly Sachs. In an outstandingly
Jewish Nobel acceptance speech, Agnon introduced himself to the King of Sweden
with these words: “As a result of the historic catastrophe in
which Titus of Rome destroyed Jerusalem and Israel was exiled from its land, I
was born in one of the cities of the Exile. But always I regarded myself as one
who was born in Jerusalem.”[9]

Agnon saw in himself a child of a
nineteen-hundred-year exile, employing that age-old perseverance to return to
our land. As he explained, “At the age of nineteen and a half, I went to the
Land of Israel to till its soil and live by the labour of my hands.” He took
wood, he ascended the mountain and he built a house – simple, but powerful. And
oh, was Gd ever with him, and oh, did he ever succeed!

All of us are exiles of Jerusalem. And on
Rosh HaShanah, we remember that we are also exiles of our own souls, driven out
by the foolishness of the year past. But we also remember Chaggai’s eternal
words – We are builders by nature. We only need to take simple steps. And when
we persevere, HaShem will be with us, and grant us a כתיבה וחתימה טובה.

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

I wish I could take five minutes to blog; I have many topics in mind. But it's the old story - priority time must go to my classes and avreichim.

One of my current projects may be of interest to you: An Eighteen Hour Shiur, coming up this Sunday, 6 AM to Midnight EDT -

The goals are:
* To create a major learning opportunity before Rosh HaShanah;
* To showcase the different types of shiurim our Beit Midrash offers - Tanach, Ethics, Talmud, Halachah, History, Literature, etc.;
* To raise funds for our programs for university students.

For full details, and for source sheets and to watch on-line, click here; please share this with anyone you think might be interested. This program is modeled on the original "Longest Shiur", by Rabbi Shlomo Einhorn.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Driving through rural Western Pennsylvania this week, I twice found myself behind cars with Donald Trump bumper stickers. It was a bit of surprise; I know he has many full-throated supporters, but having lived in Canada throughout the current electoral cycle, I've never met one. I know people who mistrust Hillary Clinton enough to vote for Trump, but no one who would actually sport a Trump logo.

Seeing the bumper stickers catalyzed the following thought: Donald Trump is not the first leader of angry people, who view themselves as disenfranchised; look at some of the figures who claimed to speak for the American civil rights movement - Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. And permit me to oversimplify the leaders of such people into two types: 1) Those who rabble-rouse, catering to their feelings of victimization, and 2) Those who lead, inspiring their followers to something better than selfishness and hatred.

To my mind, the followers of Trump have legitimate concerns: Finances. Terrorism. Basic Freedoms. But so do the people on the other side of these debates. The question is whether Trump will demonize everyone on that other side, or whether he will lay out the challenging questions which face society, and make a reasoned argument for his solution.

Khizr Khan's speech was a perfect opportunity to do the latter. Here's what Donald Trump could have said to Khizr Khan:

I am sorry for your loss, and grateful beyond words for your sacrifice. I would never want to deny you, and the many others like you, anything of what America has to offer. Under the Constitution we both uphold, Muslims are entitled to the same protections and opportunities as Jews, Christians, atheists, and so on. But here is my problem: The same people who killed your son are trying to kill the sons and daughters of everyone living in America - all genders, all races, are vulnerable to them here. I want to stop them, but it's very hard. The best way I have come up with to do that is to identify them by their proclaimed beliefs. My system is not a good system, and the broad net it casts will include people who are honest, hard-working, good people, like you. But let me ask you: what alternative would you suggest? Because look at the headlines around the world - the current system of combating terrorism in the name of Islam isn't working.

If Trump were a thoughtful and empathetic human being, that's what he could have said, and it could have led to a meaningful conversation. Too bad that's not the case.

Friday, June 10, 2016

I presented this derashah last Shabbos, and it seems to have been fairly well-received. Since I haven't had time to post, I'll offer it here for (hopefully) your reading pleasure.

Mending Wall

Something there is that doesn't love a wall / That
sends the frozen ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun…

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; / And on a day we meet to walk the
line

And set the wall between us once again…

There where it is, we do not need the wall: / He is all pine and I am apple
orchard.

My apple trees will never get across / And eat the cones under his pines, I
tell him.

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

In 1914, Robert Frost
published this classic poem, “Mending Wall”, about two neighbours whose
properties are divided by a stone wall. The first neighbour describes the wall
as an unecessary barrier; the other neighbour preaches an unquestioning
devotion to received wisdom, that “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Torah: Walls create
unhelpful division

At first glance, the
Torah seems to take the side of the first neighbour, and to argue even more
strongly, that walls are worse than superfluous; they create destructive
divisions, and they should be eliminated:

With the mitzvah of shemitah, the Torah warns that walls separate
haves from have-nots, preventing chesed. Yes, our property needs protection,
but every seven years we must acknowledge the downside, drop our guard,
and allow the world into our fields and vineyards. The Torah states, “You
shall release your field and abandon it,[1]”
and the Mechilta[2]
comments מגיד שפורץ בה פרצות, that the Torah wishes us to actually smash holes in our
fences,[3] and
remove that barrier.

Second, with the mitzvah of batei arei chomah, the Torah warns that
walls separate urban life from agriculture. The Torah bans family estates
in walled-in cities. If a family sells an open field, they receive the
field back in the Yovel year. But if a family sells a building in a walled
city, that building never comes back.[4]
Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains that farming is the natural focus of human
creativity, and the Torah wishes us to remain close to the land. Yes, we
need to shield civilization from the wild, but because of this downside to
urbanization, we must eliminate the wall.[5]

Third: The Torah’s tochachah threats of Divine punishment warn that
there is even danger in the walls that separate us from our enemies, because
they lead to faith in our manmade defenses. Walls of defense may be
entirely necessary. But the Torah[6]
warns that if these fortresses breed misplaced trust in our own strength,
then a day will come when Gd will demolish our walls.

Something there is
that doesn’t love a wall, in the Torah. There are negative, unhelpful walls –
walls that insulate the wealthy from the needy, walls that enable urban
stagnation, walls that lead to arrogance.

But there are good
walls, too

On the other hand: The
second neighbour, with his devotion to maintaining the wall, can also claim
endorsement from the Torah!

Halachah identifies the manmade walls of Yerushalayim as sacred, imbuing
the city with sanctity, just as the concentric walls of the Beis haMikdash
enable a heirarchy of holiness within their precincts!

Further, we use walls for beautiful mitzvos – the succah in which
we dwell with Hashem, the chuppah in which we initiate a Jewish home!

How, then, are we to
understand the Jewish view of a wall? Are they bad, or good? Is there a single
answer? What would Rabbi Robert Frost say?

Propinquity

In the 1940s, a team
of MIT psychologists conducted the “Westgate Studies”, trying to figure out which
interactions lead to friendships. They developed what is now known as the
propinquity effect. To state it simply: Even though people say that
“familiarity breeds contempt,” the truth of human nature is that the more you
encounter someone, the more likely you are to like them, and to create a
friendship with them.[7]

Those studies have
influenced the way companies design their workspaces. For example: the
successful animation company Pixar initially housed its computer scientists in
one building, its animators in another building, and its executives and editors
in a third building. Steve Jobs, as CEO, redesigned the offices to bring all of
the groups together, into one space. Why? Because inhabiting a shared,
collaborative space encourages relationships.[8]
And this can be enhanced by a surrounding wall that accentuates the
collaboration.

Two Kinds of Walls

So perhaps there are
two kinds of walls: Exclusive and Inclusive.

The Exclusive wall is the wall around the field, meant to exclude
and obstruct: the wall that locks out the needy; the wall that separates
the city from nature; the wall that provides overconfident defense. This
is the wall the Torah would demolish.

But there is also the Inclusive wall, that creates collaborative
closeness, even intimacy, by enhancing propinquity for those within.

We, as Jews, identify ourselves
as part of a nation, a community, a team. To promote that shared identity and
cohesion, we build walls encircling and identifying our team. This wall, designed
to include, to embrace, to envelop in private community – this wall is not
merely appropriate, but glorious![9]

The walls of the Chuppah isolate a couple exclusively for each
other![11]

And the walls of Yerushalayim demarcate מחנה ישראל,
a camp which the Rambam[12]
said is invested with eternal holiness by those very walls.

The Walls of
Yerushalayim

The walls of
Yerushalayim are positive walls, meant not to exclude Beit Lechem and Chevron
and other surrounding cities, but rather to encircle the people within, Jews of
all ages and all ethnicities and all types of observance, to create a unified
community. Those walls of Yerushalayim are large enough to embrace us all - and
as the fifth perek of Pirkei Avos promises, no Jew will ever say, “I cannot
find my place in Yerushalayim.”[13]

Our sages acted to encourage
this sense of community in Yerushalayim.

Three times each year, Jews from far and wide would gather there for
Yom Tov, fulfilling the mitzvah of aliyah laregel. Some of these were very
observant Jews, and others were less so. This meeting of populations could
have been a disaster – there could have been an insistence on separate shopping
spaces for the ritually pure, separate eating areas for those who tithe
more carefully, and so on.

But the Chachamim understood that the only wall Yerushalayim will
tolerate is the wall surrounding it, the wall which identifies all of us
as part of the same team! As the gemara records, they decreed that when we
gather in Yerushalayim for Yom Tov, every Jew should be viewed as a חבר,
credible to declare his own purity, credible to have tithed his produce.
We could travel together, eat together, meet together, within those walls
of Yerushalayim.[14]

This is what we want.
There are legitimate differences between Jews, but what we want is not a nation
divided by the questions of Who is a Jew, of Who goes to the army and who
learns in kollel, of Who davens at the Kotel and in what way, but a nation that
sees itself as one nation, indivisible, surrounded by walls which confirm our
shared heritage and our shared destiny.

Beyond Yerushalayim

And this imperative
for propinquity extends beyond Yerushalayim, mandating us to build physical and
metaphorical inclusive walls surrounding us, marking us as one nation wherever
we are, despite our legitimate differences.

No matter where they daven, and even if they don’t daven anywhere.

No matter what standard of kashrus they keep, and even if they
don’t keep any.

No matter which approach they have to Israel, whether they believe
it’s ראשית צמיחת גאולתנו or whether they believe it’s a secular catastrophe.

Inviting these people into our homes for a meal – not only because
it’s kiruv, but because we are ערבין
זה בזה.

Offering to daven on behalf of their relatives and friends who are
ill – not only because davening for others a mitzvah, but because we care
about each other.

Even just smiling and welcoming people who aren’t within the circle
of friends and cousins with whom we grew up, and whom we’ve known for
decades – not because it’s chesed, but because it’s the right way to build
a wall.

These, like the walls
of Yerushalayim, are the glorious, encircling walls beloved to the Torah.

Reagan

In 1987, with Soviet
Communism teetering, US President Ronald Reagan visited West Berlin, and he delivered
a speech which became an instant classic. Standing before the wall dividing
East and West Berlin, he proclaimed, “Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr.
Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

That historic line
almost didn’t happen. The speechwriter, Peter Robinson, wanted it in, but nervous
diplomats insisted that Germans had grown used to the wall. So Robinson went to
dinner with some local residents, and he asked them if they had “gotten used
to” the Wall – to which the residents responded harshly that they certainly had
not. The rest is oratorical history.[15]
And two years later, the wall did finally come down.

With the laws of
shemitah and walled cities, with the warning of the Tochachah, the Torah
teaches us to “tear down this wall” which divides. But with the succah and the
chuppah and the holiness of Yerushalayim, the Torah teaches us to “build up
this wall” of propinquity which encircles and envelops, creating shared
identity and community. Such is the beauty of the walls of Yerushalayim.

May we see Hashem
rebuild these walls with fire; may we see Hashem rebuild these walls now; and
may we view them not by live stream on our phones in Toronto, but as part of
that sacred community, from the inside.